Chaps

17 hours ago, Jon White said:

Hi.  It really depends upon how hard you drive a particular CPU.  I lightly overclock most of the time on my video post system, and always do fine with normal fan cooling.  Audio systems don't need superperformance in general.

One other thing that helps my video system is the NVidia CUDA design structure.  That makes having huge processing power in the CPU somewhat of a moot point.  The GPU power takes care of things.  SDD write performance these days makes it even nicer, although 4K calls for even more transfer efficiency if you don't like the waits.

Thanks for the input. I have a video card that is, I think, CUDA capable (GeForce GT640LP) so that will be helpful if I get into video creating, editing and processing. I guess I'll wait to see how everything works out before I decide to get a liquid CPU cooler. My main concerns are the temperature in my bedroom and the lack of good airflow because of where my desktop tower is.

1 hour ago, StudioNSFW said:

 I recently learned that the newest AMD architectures are much more lane heavy than the Intel platforms around and  are advantaged there.

Here's a graphic from the manual for the AMD motherboard I ordered (Gigabyte B450 AORUS PRO WIFI). It shows that an M.2 SSD uses 2 SATA lanes out of 6.

Check your preferences to see if Suspend Audio Engine When Cakewalk Is Not In Focus is  enabled. If it is, try disabling it to see if that makes any difference.

Has anyone had any experience with using a liquid CPU cooler? I'm waiting on components to build a computer based on an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X CPU and a liquid CPU cooler is something I'm thinking of adding to the case. It gets awful hot here in the SJ valley and heat buildup is always something that has concerned me.

The first thing to check would to make sure Input Echo is enabled on the track your vsti is on.

Are you using take lanes on the distorted vocal track? Is the waveform also showing distortion?

Not an answer to your question, but an alternate method. GR5 works great for processing a recorded guitar signal in Cakewalk. A big problem in recording live guitar is how you listen to the guitar parts you are playing while recording them. I have had good results using a passive direct box to record the straight guitar signal while sending an output to my guitar amplifier for monitoring. No worries about latency or feedback. All you need is a direct box (I paid less than $30 for one) and an amplifier.

One advantage of recording the direct guitar signal is that you can take your time and find the right GR5 sounds (or TH3, etc.) you want, even layer different GR5 sounds using multiple tracks.

Turn off Snap. Right-Click the Draw Tool to select Line Mode to draw the controllers. Left-Click where the series of controllers will start then click and drag the cursor to where you want the series of controllers to stop and let up the left mouse button. Use Freehand Mode similarly, but it doesn't automatically create straight lines like Line Mode Does.

44 minutes ago, Sunset Recording said:

I  would upload pictures but I don't know how to make them small enough.

Here is a handy website that will resize images for you over the Internet.

https://pixlr.com/x/

Have you tried Bouncing the track with Fast Bounce turned off? Or Audible Bounce turned on?

4 minutes ago, Gabriel said:

OK it was not so hard...

In the plugin manager, on the top-right of the window, we've got a function to backup and restore those categories disposition.

The backup makes a .pgl file, wich is a text file with xml text inside.

Beat me to it. 😉

You can click the Save button and save the layout to any destination folder. I save mine to OneDrive.

4 hours ago, Lucy said:

How do you move tracks manually, like click and drag each track so vocals are with vocals, percussion is in a specific order etc etc.

Click the Track Icon to the right of the track number and drag it up or down to where you want.

4 minutes ago, wunderbier said:

Is there a technical reason why those plugins should go in different places? I typically only install one version (starting with VST3 and working backwards if there are problems), but I put everything into the same C:\Program Files\VstPlugIns folder. I haven't encountered a problem so far (I think) regardless of plugin type.

My understanding is that 32 bit VST2  go in the C:\Program Files (x86) directory (C:\Program Files (x86)\Cakewalk\Vstplugins)

64 bit VST2  go in the C:\Program Files directory (C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Vstplugins)

 and VST3 go in the C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3 directory.

And some plugins will install to the Steinberg directory in either C:\Program Files\ or C:\Program Files (x86) unless you change the destination folder during installation. Any sub-directory will do as long as it's added to the VST scan path.

That's how I've been doing it and everything works fine. If I'm wrong I hope someone will correct me.

1 minute ago, wunderbier said:

I'll keep that in mind. I do install every single VST to the same folder, so it would be easy in that regard. I'm looking at grabbing the Computer Music plugin bundle, but kinda sweating the idea of adding 90+ plugins at once. 😅 Thanks!

I usually install them in a folder with the company's name. Helps me keep track of them. Keep in mind that 32 bit, and 64 bit VST, and VST3 plugins go in different locations.

If there is no way to sort plugins by date in the program you can do it the old-fashioned way by opening the folder the plugins are actually installed in and sorting them by Date Modified.

9 minutes ago, Mr. Torture said:

Where are my Midi effects?

 

Here's how I do it.

Right-Click the CLIP and select either Insert Effect, which will put MIDI FX in the clip's FX Rack and will act non-destructively, or click Process Effect which will open the tool and destructively write the changes you make to the MIDI data.

13 minutes ago, Victoria Johnson said:

Chappel .. that TH3 worked great .. thanks. If I ever record for real I will do that in a studio. I don't have a choice as to when I practice/record.... have to do it when husband is working!

I thought it might. Glad to hear it worked out. Guitar amp sims can be very useful for more than just guitars. Keep experimenting. Who knows, your go-to amp might be a bass amp.

Are you using any plugins that may have to be reauthorized? Some demo versions of plugins will exhibit that kind of behavior when the grace period is exceeded.

I suggest you take some time and look through some of the posts in the Tutorials section of this forum. You don't need to read everything but there is a lot of good advice and tips there that would allow you to have a better understanding of how Cakewalk works and what you can do with it. Focus on threads for beginners.  One problem you may have on this thread is people offering you advice using terms that you won't understand. I also suggest you download a copy of the Cakewalk Reference File so you can look up things that other users may post here, to give you a better understanding of what they are referring to. Everybody here wants to help people get started, but the terminology involved is often a stumbling block to meaningful communication.

https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.php?/forum/35-tutorials/

https://bandlab.github.io/cakewalk/docs/Cakewalk Reference Guide.pdf

17 minutes ago, SteveC said:

Completely OT - but I had to acknowledge one of the better quotes I've read it quite some time.    👍😃

Go big or go home. 😉

25 minutes ago, Barry Seymour said:

That makes sense, thanks for the explanation. So many buttons, so much to forget, ha ha.

 

If you want to make sure nothing is Write Enabled, there is a Clear all automation write enables button in the Mix Module in the Control Bar. If anything is Write Enabled it will turn red, as shown in the image below. Click it to turn off all write automation.

17 minutes ago, StudioNSFW said:

If I was going to guess, based on a VERY similar experience, you had write automation turned on and forgot to turn it off. I had a similar experience.  I was setting some levels with the faders with Write Automation on, then, a second time through I started tweaking some knobs on Reverb and compression to find the right settings. .  Since I forgot to turn off the Write Automation,  Cakewalk dutifully paid attention to what I had done and kept doing it and my knob twiddling was recorded for posterity.

That seems like a pretty good guess.

If I want to randomize velocities for a track with chords, and sometimes drums, I like Cakewalk's Velocity MFX. It doesn't come with any useful presets but you can make your own pretty easily. Adjust the sliders, and this will take some trial and error before it becomes intuitive, to where you want then type in a name and then click the Save icon. The preset shown is one I made for more extreme variations in velocity for piano tracks I put together using the PRV. I have multiple presets for Piano (though they can be used with any MIDI instrument) with varying degrees of randomization. If I have a long piano track with multiple clips I will use different presets on different clips, increasing the 'humanizing' effect.

Here is a preset with less extreme velocity changes for comparison.

5 minutes ago, Barry Seymour said:

Thanks, I figured it out and did it the hard way, deleting all envelopes individually. Still not sure where all that stuff came from...

Thank you for the help!
 

You're welcome. I wish I had posted that sooner to save you the trouble.

Just  removing the Automation Lane doesn't remove the Envelopes. Try this to remove the envelopes.

To Delete ALL the envelopes or envelopes in individual Automation Lanes:

To delete several or all envelopes
1. Select the data that contains the envelopes you want to delete—you can select parts of tracks, one or more whole tracks, or all
tracks.

Use the Edit > Delete Special command to open the Delete dialog box.

2. Select only Track/Bus Automation if it’s listed.

3. Click OK.
Cakewalk deletes any track and clip envelopes that are in the data you selected.

If you to keep some automation but delete others, open the Automation Lanes and select just the lanes that contain the envelopes you want to remove. To select a lane click the top left corner above the  -  sign. Press and hold the Ctrl key to select multiple lanes.

Then use Edit/Delete Special to delete the unwanted envelopes, which will also remove those Automation Lanes.